The AIIMS faculty has written a letter to the director, complaining that their pay scale will be “diluted” as the Centre has reduced entry pay for various positions at the institute under the Seventh Central Pay Commission (CPC). This, despite 17 faculty members quitting AIIMS in the last three years — including five in the last six months.
The faculty has pointed out that as per a recent order issued by the government, the entry pay for a professor would be Rs 58,500 now as compared to Rs 62,100 under the Sixth CPC; for additional professor it would be 52,300 as compared to Rs 55,500; for associate professor it would be Rs 49,200 as compared to Rs 51,800; and for assistant professor it would continue to be at Rs 38,000.
“We have sought a meeting with the ministry regarding this decision. We have also written to the AIIMS director. The pay scales at AIIMS have been diluted. Under the Sixth CPC, the entry pay at IIT is less than at AIIMS. But if you apply the same pay scales under the Seventh CPC for AIIMS and IIT, it would devalue AIIMS faculty,” a senior member of the AIIMS faculty told The Indian Express.
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The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), on November 1, had issued a notification for pay revision for faculty of AIIMS, PGIMER, Chandigarh and JIPMER, Puducherry.
Interestingly, on October 27, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) had issued a circular to Directors of all centrally funded technical institutes like IIMs and IITs about the revised pay scale. And on November 1, these same revised pay scales were recommended by the MoHFW for AIIMS. The AIIMS administration, on November 7, issued a circular to its faculty members to submit their “form of option and undertaking” to implement the revised pay scale.
“It is for the first time that that they have linked revised pay scales of autonomous institutions under MHRD with those of autonomous institutions under the Health Ministry. We were not told why this decision was taken,” an AIIMS faculty member said.
Earlier, a committee formed by the Health Ministry to recommend implementation of a revised pay scale, which included the AIIMS director, had highlighted the problems of “unattractive pay at the institute” as the reason behind the exits.
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To counter the exits of professor-level faculty at AIIMS, the committee had recommended that 40 per cent of professors be made senior professors; and 10 per cent of senior professors be promoted as well. “However, even with promotions, the faculty (will) be hit financially as entry level pay for each position has been reduced,” the faculty said.
Kaunain Sheriff M is an award-winning investigative journalist and the National Health Editor at The Indian Express. He is the author of Johnson & Johnson Files: The Indian Secrets of a Global Giant, an investigation into one of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies.
With over a decade of experience, Kaunain brings deep expertise in three areas of investigative journalism: law, health, and data. He currently leads The Indian Express newsroom’s in-depth coverage of health.
His work has earned some of the most prestigious honours in journalism, including the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Award, and the Mumbai Press Club’s Red Ink Award.
Kaunain has also collaborated on major global investigations. He was part of the Implant Files project with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which exposed malpractices in the medical device industry across the world. He also contributed to an international investigation that uncovered how a Chinese big-data firm was monitoring thousands of prominent Indian individuals and institutions in real time.
Over the years, he has reported on several high-profile criminal trials, including the Hashimpura massacre, the 2G spectrum scam, and the coal block allocation case. Within The Indian Express, he has been honoured three times with the Indian Express Excellence Award for his investigations—on the anti-Sikh riots, the Vyapam exam scam, and the abuse of the National Security Act in Uttar Pradesh. ... Read More
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AIIMS, New Delhi. (File photo)
